USER INTERFACE FOR DISPLAYING IMAGES OF SIGHTS

• US 20080086686A1
• Filed: 10/10/2006
• Published: 04/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ma, Wei-Ying, Zhang, Lei, Jing, Feng
• Granted Patent: US 7,657,504 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/706
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3605 Destination input or retrieval
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 29/008 Touring maps or guides to public transport networks
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 29/106 using electronic means

Abstract

A method and system for identifying sights associated with a location and for displaying images associated with those sights is provided. A tour system identifies sights associated with a location by submitting a search request formed using the location to an image search service. The tour system identifies salient phrases of metadata of the search results to be the candidate sight names. The tour system also provides a user interface for displaying the images associated with the locations. The user interface may present a slideshow of sights encountered when traveling on a trip.

Claims

1. A computing system for identifying sights for locations, comprising:

a component that receives a start location and an end location;

a component that identifies travel locations that may be encountered when traveling from the start location to the end location;

a component that identifies sights associated with the identified travel locations;

a component that retrieves images associated with the identified sights; and

a component that displays one or more of the retrieved images.

2. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the component that displays the retrieved images simultaneously displays a map encompassing the start location and the end location.

3. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the component that displays the retrieved images displays the images as a slideshow.

4. The computing system of claim 3 wherein the images of the slideshow are displayed in order encountered when traveling from the start location to the end location.

5. The computing system of claim 3 wherein the component that displays the retrieved images displays a map encompassing the start location and the end location and displays an indication of the travel location associated with images of the slideshow.

6. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the start location and the end location are indicated by a user selecting a path from the start location to the end location.

7. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the travel locations are identified based on distance from a travel path to the travel location.

8. The computing system of claim 1 including a component that, when a displayed image of a sight is selected, displays multiple images associated with the sight of the selected image.

9. The computing system of claim 1 wherein each displayed image represents a travel location.

10. The computing system of claim 9 wherein when an image is selected, displaying an image for each sight associated with the travel location represented by the selected image.

11. The computing system of claim 10 including a component that, when a displayed image representing travel location is selected, displays a map centered at the represented travel location.

12. A computing system for presenting images of sights associated with a location, comprising:

a component that identifies sights associated with the location;

a component that locates images associated with the identified sights;

a component that displays at least one image for each of the identified sights; and

a component that, when a displayed image of a sight is selected, displays multiple images associated with the sight of the selected image.

13. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the component that identifies sights accesses a mapping of locations to sights.

14. The computing system of claim 13 wherein the mapping of locations to sights is generated by submitting a location as a search request to a search service and selecting sights from the search results.

15. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the component that displays the retrieved images simultaneously displays a map encompassing the sights of the location.

16. The computing system of claim 15 wherein the sights are indicated on the displayed map.

17. The computing system of claim 16 wherein when a pointer hovers over a displayed indication of a sight, displaying information relating to the sight.

18. A computing system for presenting sights, comprising:

a component that receives an indication of one or more locations;

a component that identifies sights associated with the one or more locations;

a component that retrieves images associated with the identified sights;

a component that displays at least one image for each of the one or more locations; and

a component that, when a displayed image of a location is selected, displays an image associated with each of one or more of the sights of the location of the selected image.

19. The computing system of claim 18 including a component that simultaneously displays a map encompassing the locations.

20. The computing system of claim 18 including a component that displays a slideshow of images of sights of travel locations from a start location to an end location.